


Wild Child

by Meldanya



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Aviation, F/M, M/M, World War I, postwar days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meldanya/pseuds/Meldanya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Flying is the only active profession I would ever continue with enthusiasm after the War. - Wilfred Owen</em>
</p><p>"Remember Madagascar?"<br/>
"How could I forget? It's a miracle we survived that landing ... and then the cyclone around us raged for days."</p><p>A crucial moment between two aviators in 1919.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/gifts).



In March 1919, the RAF men at Colchester Air Base were bored: wanting to go home, waiting for the orders, they killed time with card games, stunt flying maneuvers, and motorcycle races.

It had been at one of the motorcycle races that he’d first met her — she flirted, he’d surprised himself by laughing. She talked him into letting her ride his cycle as a lark, then she blew all the men away by winning.

“Wild child,” he called her.

After that, she haunted the air base at a time when his mates were being demobbed, one by one. He woke up every day, worrying that it would be him. He knew what waiting for him at home: his father’s shop, marriage to a suitable girl, never flying again, never loving again.

When his orders did come, it wasn’t to go home. He was being sent to Kenya to run intelligence ops in East Africa for six months — six more months of flying, his first lucky break since Rikki’s plane was shot down.

* * *

She was on the boat, his second lucky break. He had no idea how she scammed her way onto a Royal Navy vessel, but she seemed desperately keen to leave England and Europe. Her mood buoyed with every passing day — they spent their days on board together, he made her laugh, she put him at ease.

One night somewhere on the Mediterranean, he finally decided to try to kiss her, to try and drive away the memories of his last kiss. He leaned forward, stroking her soft skin (not rough), and gently pressed himself against her lips. For a moment, she held her breath, and then pulled him closer, deepening it. When they broke, “I wondered when you were finally going to do that,” she said, eyes shining.

After that, they’d find time in quiet locations for quick fumblings: her working him with her hands and her mouth, him trying to hide that he was thinking of Rikki's broad mouth and calloused hands. She was always the one in the lead (a relief). He would offer to touch her, and she’d gently demur, with a tightness around her eyes. There was something off there — perhaps she had lost a love, just like him. He never asked.

That tightness was around her face again as he was bidding her farewell in Mombasa. She had planned to head home to the ship’s final destination, but she looked so unmoored that he impulsively said, “Come with me, Phryne.” He didn’t want to be alone again in the air.

* * *

The Nairobi RAF base was run by a drunken sod with lax discipline, who turned a blind eye to the charming girl’s presence on his base. Lyle had no desire to spend their time drinking with the CO and the rest of the boorish officers, so instead, he spent his time teaching her everything he knew about planes instead. She knew a little, from before her war, but he taught her tricks: barrel-rolls, loop-de-loops, wingovers. They recreated over the savanna all the tricks he'd learned in France with Rikki.

Occasionally his CO would remember they were supposed to be running missions, and he would be ordered to do basic reconnaissance work in Abyssinia or Italian Somalia; he’d bring her along with him, and no one batted an eye. No more lonely skies.

The months stretched on, and they found more ways to fill time further from base. They attempted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro together and collapsed by first hiker’s hut, laughing at themselves for the attempt. They swam in Lake Victoria, safaried on the Serengeti, and wandered the beaches of Zanzibar. Never gave themselves a chance to be alone with their thoughts. Never gave themselves a moment to slow down. 

* * *

The request came through on one of the odd occasions when the CO was sober enough to understand it: the Armée de l'Air in Madagascar wanted help with training exercises. He leapt at the opportunity to fly that far and for that long. She came with him, of course.

Flying down the East Coast of Africa was unforgettably glorious, just the two of them, alone in the air, taking turns piloting. Crossing the Mozambique Channel was thrilling — he had never flown so far over open ocean before, as they tried to spot the tiny Camaros Islands to land on. He never wanted to stop.

Then the air changed so quickly. Nowhere safe to land. Not being able to steer. She was screaming at him, “Compton, bail!! You have a chute! BAIL!” That was never an option — he was not going to save himself and send her to her certain death. If they were dying, they were dying together — it’s not as if he had anything left to live for. The ravine was their only hope. 

He didn’t know how they survived that crash land; they leapt from the plane only seconds before the flames started.

As the plane burned, they collapsed on the ground in hysterical nervous laughter, then picked themselves up and started scrambling for shelter and rations, still giggling, making Robinson Crusoe jokes. Then the cyclone started in earnest.

They huddled in their shelter, and the nervous laughter suddenly stopped; they gazed at each other, panting. They had almost died. They flung themselves against each other, furiously kissing, for once without reserve, trying to remember the feel of blood and the taste of skin. They could still die.

As they stripped off their charred, soaked garments, they slowed down, gently exploring each other’s bodies (so very different from Rikki). She finally asked him to touch her — he was tentative, gentle, inexperienced, but she coached him through — the first time she came for him, she started crying and he sprang back with horror that he’d hurt her. She was shaking, and she said, “Just ... thank you, thank you so much, Lyle.”

The wind kept howling, they held each other tightly. Forced to pause for once, they talked. They talked about home, Collingwood, MaGill; the worst of the war; the freedom of flying, which was like nothing else in the world.

They drank what little liquor they had as the rains kept falling. Sometime during the second day, huddled bare together under their jackets, their secrets started to come out. He told her about Rikki, a flying ace who had had been shot down two days before Armistice. She spoke softly of Paris, of her time among the artists, of mysterious deaths and a man called Rene.

They promised each other, that if they survived this, that they would live life to the fullest, no matter what. No more hiding, no more running.

Even as he spoke the words, he knew it was an empty promise.

* * *

On the fifth day, they were rescued.

As they stood at the docks in Mahajanga, waiting for the ship that would take him back to base, she told him that she wasn’t coming with him. She was going to go to Mozambique instead, and from there, see where the winds would take her. She kissed goodbye him while beaming, “Thank you — you’ve given me a chance to fly.”

He kissed her gently, "Goodbye, wild child."

He watched her as he boarded his ship back to the RAF, with a pang of envy in his chest watching her on shore. He knew that she’d find adventure and love wherever she went. But for him? Freedom was only found in flying — there were no other options left for him. Goggles and god help him. 

**Author's Note:**

> _"Compton was a long time ago, Jack, and it wasn't like that. Oh, okay, it was. But you know what it's like when life is fleeting and you feel like you can die at any minute"_
> 
> This was my attempt to capture some of the history that is woven into Phryne's and Compton's backstory in 3x02 -- what did happen in 1919? How did they get from England to Madagascar? Was he her first man after Rene? How did he change by 1929?


End file.
